Fort Worth weekly gazette. [volume] (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1887-03-11

7 -
Jackson. Jackson was allowed to make a
sels ction of some land here for his ser
vices in the Indian VIZ He chose this
/ site, saying that it Hvuid b.: q great city
some day. He became wrapped mp in
his political aspirations and could not do
anything to make his prophecy true. II
| is coming true nevertheless. Some CAPT
talists who saw that there must be q city
here bought the land on which the city is
low building for So or $40 an acre
They bou ut 200 or 1900 acres and al
Vertised that they were going TO sell lots
for a city.
ga friend Of mine, Judge John Steel,
used to own the land, and ne described to
me the first auction Of lots. His Office
was ct Tuscumbia, two and half miles
away. He was sitting in it one day when
q man rushed in and asked him il he kne 3
what was going on down near the river
| He replied that he did lot, and he WAS
then told that the cars had brought
in about 900 people aud they were
! holding an auction there Of lots for
city. Steel laughed ana said they were
fools and went on with his writing. In 4
few moments another man came il and
asked the same question, and told him
there were 800 men down at this auction
and that they were bidding away at the
Iaud like mad. He concluded to see the
show and Jumped on his horse. He rode
down to the river and found this crowd
Of men around q WSg0n IN a large field
Of green corn. In this wagon an
auCtiOneer stood and he vas selling 10 ;.
This lot said he, ION which the wagon
now stands is lot number -. II is on
the main street ard it is 2jXlU0. II is
valuable property. What am l Offered?'
He had hardly got the words out Of his
mouth when he was offered $1,000. This
rose rapidly to $1,000, SI4OO and finally
sold for $500. The wagon then drove to
the next lot and it was sold in the same
way. Steel looked on for ten minutes
and then jumped on MS horse and gal
lOped back to his office, thinking that the
men were both mad and foolish.
"Stiu at this point there is now G big
hotel. They have street car line, ma
tiOnal bank, and there are six furnaces
blaZirg about the city. The town was
laid out on May I, 1854, and at the close
of this sale above described 1924, geo
worth OF lots had been sold. | visited
Sheffield three weeks ago. l ssW a crowd
of men rushing across the street, and |
asked friend what that meant. He told
me they inteEded to organize "a street 6ll-
way company, and asked me if l did not
want to take some stock. | look
ed at the grass growing about me
and said no. | walked about
the city and half IN hour afterwards | met
one OF the crowd who mad been rushing
to the street railway meeting. He tod
me that 1t was all fixed, that they mad
organized the company, elected presi-
dent, gotten up the capital and would
start 10 work st OocG. | have since Te-
ceived adyices thai the road was ID active
operation. That same afternoon l saw
another crowd rushing into another
building, and I asked as TO It. Those 1ei,
lows are going 70 STARE Il national rank.
Half 81 hour later they had founded the
bank gslth big capital, and l doubt nOG
by this time they have 100000 or 50 Of
deposits.
"Why," continued Mr.. Jones, "those
fellows will syndicate anything. A half
dozen of Sheffield capitalists were one
night in the big hotel at Sheffield. One
of them said, Let's form 9 syndicate and
buy something's But what shall we buy ?.
asked another. 'On, anything replied
GullNly ICL ia GuAO OIauh LUIGI
what shall we give for it!n said fourth,
and fifth said he thought it ought to be
worth 100000. They then sent one of
their number down TO see the landlord.
He said, as the story goes, Landlord, I'l
give you 100000 for your hotel
"I'n do it. said the man, IF can have
one-third cash Done replied the
buyer, aud the pspers were drawn up and
the property changed hands. Within
week these fellows sold that hotel for
$4,000 -
at is wonderful how foreign capital is
rushing into Alabama. Five hundred
lum 2ermen came down to look at the
lumber regions, and, by the way, we h&ve
millions Of feet of the finest lumber of
the world. 1t is finer than the Georgis
yellow pine, IL is as straight as q lead
pencil, and we have acres upon acres Of
virgin forests full of trees which extend
eighty feet before you see q limb. The
pine Of Michigan and Maine has been
pretty we'll cut out. Immense fortunes
were made in il and the same will be in
Alabama. The pine is 50 located that it
can easily be shipped TO the seab0ard and
sent all over The world. One Of these
lumbermcn stopped of q day il Birming-
ham, and bought $500 worth of real
estate before b. went further south. a
probate JUDGE in Missouri visited Biz
mlr CHAM. lie locked over the field and
wrote ont his resignation. Five months
ago he had no n JneY to speak OF and now
he is worth 500, 600.
"The Pratt coal mine, near BirmiGg
ham, is the largest in the world. Its out
put at present is 5000 tons day, and
within few days, by new openings. it
Will be increased to COCO tons daily"
"Tell me something shout Admission,
the town which Judge Kelley doomed"
"Auniston, is now doing well, and it
may thank Kelley much for it. It was
rather running down, and the people were
leaving for other points before Kelley
came north. His talk ABOUT it gave it
new start, and it is now growing like
JOnah's g0urd. Decatur, Ala, is another
town that is jumping fast to the front,
and +. c. Gordon, the trOther Of General
Gordon, has made a fortune out Of it.
The Cahaba valley region is bound to be
8 CREST point 1t has the finest of coal,
and it's coal can be shipped 10 the sea
board very easily. This coal contains 90
per cent. of carbon. Since l left Annis-
ton two pieces Of property have been sold
there for 81, 000,0O0 which is perhaps the
largest sale of property made in the
south. At the time I was in Admission
the town was in the dumps, and friend
Of,miue had bought two lots for S500e
He thought then that he had bad bsf-
vuo1+o5 %o coil fhan1 for 5nO